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Operations Handling of the Political Layer in the Stack
When a Web redesign or content management project gets announced, there is much excitement from all areas of the organization. The possibilities for a newer, better system holds out the promise of more functionality, better workflow, increased ease of use, and other great things. IT loves picking the tools; Marketing loves the chance for a make-over, and content contributors love the idea of automated management of the rote tasks that go with content management.
Where the plan breaks down is usually somewhere around the political layer of the project. Many times, change management means “change scheduling”, and there is little or no attention paid to the aspects of user behavior, process control, and setting up a governance model. Because operations strategy hasn’t been handled as an explicit part of the project, the long-term strategic vision doesn’t get carried through to the tactical level. As a result, once the implementation has been completed and staff engages as part of their day-to-day work, the operations of the site start to develop its unique set of problems.
David Hobbs, a technology consultant, discusses some of tensions in handling the political layer of a technology project, on the Welchman Pierpoint blog. To learn how early architectural decisions can affect long-term capabilities, mark David’s session, Deep or Shallow Multilingual? at Web Content 2009 Tampa Bay.
